inscribed and dated "In Aldermarston Park Aug 1858" and further signed with initials "TT"
Tom and Laura Taylor and thence by descent
Aldermaston Court is a country house and private park built in the Victorian era for Daniel Higford Davall Burr with incorporations from a Stuart house. It is south-east of the village nucleus of Aldermaston in the English county of Berkshire. The predecessor manor house became a mansion from the wealth of its land and from assistance to Charles I during the English Civil War under ownership of the Forster baronets of Aldermaston after which the estate has alternated between the names Aldermaston Park and Aldermaston Manor.
The estate became dominated by its neo-Elizabethan mansion after a fire of 1843 destroyed one third of the predecessor and various landscape features were added which have resulted in building and grounds being Grade II* listed. Between the turn of the 21st century and its closure in 2012, the estate has been a wedding venue, a conference centre, and a hotel. Aside from the manor house and its immediate surroundings, the park is home to office buildings and a lake.
The current house is situated approximately 50 metres (160 ft) south of the original manor house. Rebuilt by Daniel Burr in 1848 following a huge fire, the new manor was built in the Elizabethan style, and incorporated the figured wooden staircase, some stained glass, and the chimney stacks from the 1636 house, which was later demolished.
Aldermaston Park is an ancient and derelict wood pasture, featuring numerous examples of pollard oak and sweet chestnut. In the mid-16th century, the park was 286 acres (116 ha), by 1721 it was 436 acres (176 ha) and by 1860 it was considered 780 acres (320 ha). Vintage pollard sweet chestnut.
Aldermaston Court is on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens as Grade II. Historic evidence identifies that it was recorded as a mediaeval deer park in 1202. There are a number of ancient oaks on the site and within the development footprint which, in the opinion of experts, could be between 400-600 years old.
Aldermaston Court is important at a landscape scale. It is situated in an area of high concentration of ancient woodland and surrounded on all sides by a number of SSSIs. It is less than 1 kilometre from Wasing Park, another Registered Park and Garden with important aged and veteran trees. It is likely that the site was once part of Windsor Great Park which is situated in the Thames Valley Natural Character Area (NCA). Ancient Woodland (including pasture woodland) is an ecosystem in which the trees, soil and all associated organisms are interconnected. Integrity of the habitat is fundamental to sustaining the high values and richness of biodiversity.
Aldermaston Court is recognised as priority wood pasture and parkland on Natural England’s Wood pasture and parkland inventory (Magic) and according to Forestry Commission/Natural England Standing Advice (2015)’Ancient woodland and veteran trees: protecting them from development’ “where ancient wood-pastures are identified they should receive the same consideration as other forms of ancient woodland.”Wood pasture and parkland is characterised as a mosaic habitat. The key elements of the habitat which are vital for its long-term sustainability include open space, scrub and a good tree population age structure. Hawthorn and other flowering species included in the category of ‘scrub’ are an essential component of wood-pasture as a nectar source for the saproxylic species associated with veteran trees, dead and decaying wood.
Ancient and veteran trees are a vital and treasured part of our natural and cultural landscape and heritage. Concentrations of them and large girthed trees are important for biodiversity. Ancient trees are trees that are old for their species and constitute only a very small proportion of the tree population which means that they are rare. Some ancient trees are many hundreds of years old and should be recognised as very special. With age comes the development of distinctive habitat features e.g. hollowing and decaying wood in the crown which support a rich and diverse range of specialist organisms, especially wood decay fungi and invertebrates. Trees that have these habitat features, whether acquired through age, management or life history are all defined as veteran, but only those that are old for their species are described as ancient/aged. These values are not lost when a tree dies, although they will diminish over time.
The Achard Family (11th century–1361)
The Achard coat of arms
Robert FitzAchard (1070–1161) was granted the Aldermaston estate in 1100 by Henry I of England; no records of the house at this time have survived. FitzAchard was a distinguished Norman soldier whose son built the north transept in the parish church. According to the Pipe Rolls of 1168, the name had become Aldermannestun. The Achard family hosted Henry III at the manor in 1227, but granted a long lease of the rectory and glebe to Priory of Monk Sherborne (Pamber Priory); the family are all buried at their secondary manor of Sparsholt.[1] The estate descended to Peter Achard who died in 1361 with a female heir (daughter); it was inherited by Thomas de la Mare as his son-in-law.
De la Mare descendants (1361–1490)
The De la Mare coat of arms
De la Mare was from Somerset, and became the High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1370. His son was bestowed with this same position during Richard II's reign in the late 14th century. Robert de la Mare, Thomas's grandson, married into the Brocas family of Beaurepaire, near Bramley, and was made a Knight of the Shire by Henry V. Robert's son was the last of the de la Mare lineage, and a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.
Elizabeth de la Mare, whose male relatives predeceased her, inherited Aldermaston. She married into the Forster baronets' family from Northumberland. Stephen Forster, an ancestor, had previously become the Lord Mayor of London in 1454.
Forster descendants (1490–1752)
The Forster coat of arms
Elizabeth's husband, George Forster, was the son of Sir Humphrey Forster I from Harpsden near Henley. When Elizabeth and George married, George became the owner of Aldermaston Manor along with other manors previously owned by the De la Mare family. He was knighted by Henry VII in 1501, becoming Sheriff of Berkshire and Oxford in 1517. He was made a Knight of the Bath in 1525. His assumed wealth meant that he was part of Henry VIII's entourage at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.[6] George was succeeded by his son, Humphrey II, in 1533, a high sheriff.
During Humphrey II's lordship, he faced strong disputes with Francis Parkyns (alternatively spelled "Perkins"), who was the brother of the Squire of Ufton and tenant of nearby Padworth Manor. Parkyns was unhappy with Forster's "over-lordship" of Aldermaston, and Forster retaliated by breaking into Parkyns's house and severely assaulting him while he ate breakfast. Anne Parkyns, Francis's wife, begged for his life. Forster – along with an armed entourage – dragged Francis to Ufton, where the family of his brother Richard were breakfasting. More violence broke out, with Lady Marvyn – Richard's wive – also begging for Francis's life to be spared. Francis was eventually taken to Aldermaston where he was jailed in the lock-up behind the village pub.
Humphrey was later succeeded by his son, William (who married Jane, daughter of Anthony Hungerford).
Elizabeth I visited Aldermaston twice. Her first visit, in 1558, was during the lordship of William, and the second – in 1592 – during his son Humphrey III's tenure.
Humphrey III's son, William II, fathered a son – Humphrey IV – in 1595. He and his wife Anne began building a mansion house, known as Aldermaston House, in 1618 by laying a new cornerstone. The house was completed in 1636, and was dedicated with a short verse:
We live and build with one mind and
dedicated both our lives and this house to
God and to fortune.
In the year of our Lord 1636
Sir Humphrey and Lady Anne Forster, on the completion of the predecessor mansion, Aldermaston House, in 1636,
Aldermaston saw military stationing in the English Civil War. In 1643, after the First Battle of Newbury, Robert Devereux's Parliamentarians were attacked by Prince Rupert of the Rhine in Padworth Lane. The road is now known as Red Lane, having taken its name from the bloodshed.
Shield of Forster. Sable a cheveron engrailed between three arrows argent.
In October of the following year, a regiment of Parliamentary troops under the command Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester camped in the Aldermaston area. They were defending the crossing at the River Kennet, an operation that came about due to Humphrey Forster's staunch Royalist support. All the estates were sequestered because of these affiliations during the English Commonwealth and returned on the restoration of 1660. Humphrey IV died in 1663. His grandson, an MP, Sir Humphrey Forster, 2nd Baronet (c. 1649 – December 1711), died at the age of about 62 when the Baronetcy became extinct.
Above: The gatehouses and Eagle Gates at the north entrance to the estate
Below: The Charity Gates at the east side of the estate
Congreve family inheritance (1752–1843)
The Congreve coat of arms
In 1752 Forster direct descendants died out and the estate passed to Ralph Congreve as third husband of Sir Humphrey Forster, 2nd Baronet's grand-niece and heir.
In 1780 the estate passed to his second cousin, William (a relation of the dramatist of the same name). Many changes to their estate occurred during the William's ownership. The lake by the house was created by damming the stream. The wrought-iron Eagle Gates, at the north-west of the estate, were won at a game of cards so taken from Midgham. To install them, the estate's north-west lodge (a dower house) was dissected (removing the 60 square metres (650 sq ft) centre section). The estate's east gates are known as the Charity Gates; Congreve's daughters frequently sat by the gates and gave alms to the poor.
In approximately 1800, Congreve had a stable block built due west of the house; this is extant and until the site's vacancy was used office space.
William Congreve's butler at Aldermaston House, John Manning, died on 31 August 1811. Congreve erected the headstone on his grave in the village churchyard.
On 13 January 1843, a serious fire destroyed more than a third of the manor house. William Congreve never recovered from the fire and died the same year. The Congreve name is retained in the name of a cul-de-sac in the village.
Burr family purchase and rebuilding (1849–1893)
Main article: Daniel Higford Davall Burr
Daniel Burr's memorial outside the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Aldermaston.
Aldermaston Manor passed into the Court of Chancery, and was eventually purchased in 1849 by Daniel Higford Davall Burr. Since 1836, Burr had owned the Alvington manor in Gloucestershire (having inherited it upon his mother's death). Her family, the Higford family, owned Alvington from the 17th century.
Burr was somewhat eccentric, keeping monkeys and snakes as pets. He commissioned Philip Charles Hardwick to build today's edifice in a Neoclassical style; the present mansion house was built using as much of the old material as possible that had been saved from the fire.
Burr died on 29 November 1885 at the age of 74, and the estate passed to his son, Higford Higford (who, rather than taking his father's surname, assumed the name of a distant ancestor). Higford only lived at Aldermaston for a few years before putting it up for sale. He sold Alvington in 1912.
Charles Keyser purchase (1893–1938)
Main article: Charles Edward Keyser
The Keyser coat of arms[4]
In 1893, the estate was bought for £160,000 (equivalent to £18,879,446 in 2021) by Charles Edward Keyser, a stockbroker and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.[20] Keyser, who was born on 10 September 1847 and came from Hertfordshire had previously established a successful career in the City of London, having gained a Master's Degree in Law at Cambridge University. His accumulated wealth allowed him to specialise in his chosen area, and he became a distinguished figure in English church architecture, specialising in medieval churches.
Keyser's attention was drawn to Aldermaston by his sister Agnes, who said that the court reminded her of her stay at Sandringham House. Keyser seized the opportunity to buy the estate when it was put up for sale at the Hind's Head.
Keyser died in 1929, at the age of 81. His death certificate lists the place of death as Bucklebury. Keyser's estate was valued at £770,000, resulting in an Inheritance Tax of £150,000. The lessened agricultural income from the estate was then less than the cost of its maintenance in 1929. Keyser's wife, Mary died in 1938. Their son, Charles Norman, had no interest in running the estate and his heavy asthma led him to move to Adderbury, Oxfordshire. Muriel and Sybil, their daughters, had expensive taste with racehorses and ponies, and their brother sold the whole estate to a syndicate, Messrs Cribble, Booth and Shepherd, for £100,000 who auctioned it in lots at Reading Town Hall, beginning on 20 September 1939. Many of the lots were bought by their occupants. The house and its immediate grounds were bought by Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) for £16,000.
Despite the AEI purchase, the location was soon earmarked by the government for an airfield, RAF Aldermaston, to operate as a satellite field for RAF Andover. During World War II the land and house were requisitioned by the government as a barracks for the Women's Land Army, the USAAF HQ XIX Tactical Air Command was for some months stationed at the house and anti-aircraft batteries were stationed in the grounds. After the war, the airfield remained in use and was run by BOAC, who operated it as a pilot training academy then from 1947 to 1950 as a civilian airport. Air use was transferred to Blackbushe and Luton Airports.
After the closure of the airfield, the park was returned to AEI. which used it as a plasma research laboratory. They built the now demolished MERLIN reactor between the house and the lake – the first commercial scientific reactor in Britain, which was opened on 6 November 1959 by the monarch's husband, Prince Philip. The airfield became the UK's Atomic Weapons Research Establishment—later the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE)—for research, commissioning and de-commissioning of most such weapons. Periodic UK opposition to nuclear weapons was in the late 20th century was most prominently expressed in the Aldermaston Marches from London and High Wycombe, with its later marches organised in 1972 and 2004.
Collier Macmillan Schools bought the north area of the park, including the manor house, in 1965. In 1967, the house and parkland became a Grade II* listed building and parkland. Blue Circle Industries bought the estate in the 1980s. They restored the house, and converted its usage into a hotel and conference centre. They also built the offices in the park, including Portland House, which won a Concrete Society award in 1986.
The house and grounds were purchased by Holaw (420) Ltd. in 1997, who under its former name, Aldermaston Manor, converted it to a hotel and conference centre. They appointed the Compass Group to operate these uses. The business was declared insolvent in 2012, and the house and office spaces were closed.
Tom Taylor (19 October 1817 – 12 July 1880) was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine. Taylor had a brief academic career, holding the professorship of English literature and language at University College, London in the 1840s, after which he practised law and became a civil servant. At the same time he became a journalist, most prominently as a contributor to, and eventually editor of Punch.
In addition to these vocations, Taylor began a theatre career and became best known as a playwright, with up to 100 plays staged during his career. Many were adaptations of French plays, but these and his original works cover a range from farce to melodrama. Most fell into neglect after Taylor's death, but Our American Cousin (1858), which achieved great success in the 19th century, remains famous as the piece that was being performed in the presence of Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated in 1865.
Early years
Taylor was born into a newly wealthy family at Bishopwearmouth, a suburb of Sunderland, in north-east England. He was the second son of Thomas Taylor (1769–1843) and his wife, Maria Josephina, née Arnold (1784–1858). His father had begun as a labourer on a small farm in Cumberland and had risen to become co-owner of a flourishing brewery in Durham. After attending the Grange School in Sunderland, and studying for two sessions at the University of Glasgow, Taylor became a student of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1837, was elected to a scholarship in 1838, and graduated with a BA in both classics and mathematics. He was elected a fellow of the college in 1842 and received his MA degree the following year.
Taylor left Cambridge in late 1844 and moved to London, where for the next two years he pursued three careers simultaneously. He was professor of English language and literature at University College, London, while at the same time studying to become a barrister, and beginning his life's work as a writer. Taylor was called to the bar of the Middle Temple in November 1846. He resigned his university post, and practised on the northern legal circuit until he was appointed assistant secretary of the Board of Health in 1850. On the reconstruction of the board in 1854 he was made secretary, and on its abolition in 1858 his services were transferred to a department of the Home Office, retiring on a pension in 1876.
Writer
Taylor owed his fame and most of his income not to his academic, legal or government work, but to his writing. Soon after moving to London, he obtained remunerative work as a leader writer for the Morning Chronicle and the Daily News. He was also art critic for The Times and The Graphic for many years. He edited the Autobiography of B. R. Haydon (1853), the Autobiography and Correspondence of C. R. Leslie, R.A. (1860) and Pen Sketches from a Vanished Hand, selected from papers of Mortimer Collins, and wrote Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1865). With his first contribution to Punch, on 19 October 1844, Taylor began a thirty-six year association with the magazine, which ended only with his death. During the 1840s he wrote on average three columns a month; in the 1850s and 1860s this output doubled. His biographer Craig Howes writes that Taylor's articles were generally humorous commentary or comic verses on politics, civic news, and the manners of the day. In 1874 he succeeded Charles William Shirley Brooks as editor.
Taylor also established himself as a playwright and eventually produced about 100 plays. Between 1844 and 1846, the Lyceum Theatre staged at least seven of his plays, including extravanzas written with Albert Smith or Charles Kenney, and his first major success, the 1846 farce To Parents and Guardians. The Morning Post said of that piece, "The writing is admirable throughout – neat, natural and epigrammatic". It was as a dramatist that Taylor made the most impression – his biographer in the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) wrote that in writing plays Taylor found his true vocation. In thirty-five years he wrote more than seventy plays for the principal London theatres.
A substantial portion of Taylor's prolific output consisted of adaptations from the French or collaborations with other playwrights, notably Charles Reade. Some of his plots were adapted from the novels of Charles Dickens or others. Many of Taylor's plays were extremely popular, such as Masks and Faces, an extravaganza written in collaboration with Reade, produced at the Haymarket Theatre in November 1852. It was followed by the almost equally successful To Oblige Benson (Olympic Theatre, 1854), an adaptation from a French vaudeville. Others mentioned by the DNB are Plot and Passion (1853), Still Waters Run Deep (1855) and The Ticket-of-Leave Man (based on Le Retour de Melun by Édouard Brisebarre and Eugène Nus), a melodrama produced at the Olympic in 1863.Taylor also wrote a series of historical dramas (many in blank verse), including The Fool’s Revenge (1869), an adaption of Victor Hugo's Le roi s'amuse (also adapted by Verdi as Rigoletto), 'Twixt Axe and Crown (1870), Jeanne d'arc (1871), Lady Clancarty (1874) and Anne Boleyn (1875). The last of these, produced at the Haymarket in 1875, was Taylor's penultimate piece and only complete failure. In 1871 Taylor supplied the words to Arthur Sullivan's dramatic cantata, On Shore and Sea.
Like his colleague W. S. Gilbert, Taylor believed that plays should be readable as well as actable; he followed Gilbert in having copies of his plays printed for public sale. Both authors did so at some risk, because it made matters easy for American pirates of their works in the days before international copyright protection. Taylor wrote, "I have no wish to screen myself from literary criticism behind the plea that my plays were meant to be acted. It seems to me that every drama submitted to the judgment of audiences should be prepared to encounter that of readers".
Many of Taylor's plays were extremely popular, and several survived into the 20th century, although most are largely forgotten today. His Our American Cousin (1858) is now remembered chiefly as the play Abraham Lincoln was attending when he was assassinated, but it was revived many times during the 19th century with great success. It became celebrated as a vehicle for the popular comic actor Edward Sothern, and after his death, his sons, Lytton and E. H. Sothern, took over the part in revivals.
Howes records that Taylor was described as "of middle height, bearded [with] a pugilistic jaw and eyes which glittered like steel". Known for his remarkable energy, he was a keen swimmer and rower, who rose daily at five or six and wrote for three hours before taking an hour's brisk walk from his house in Wandsworth to his Whitehall office.
Some, like Ellen Terry, praised Taylor's kindness and generosity; others, including F. C. Burnand, found him obstinate and unforgiving. Terry wrote of Taylor in her memoirs:
Most people know that Tom Taylor was one of the leading playwrights of the 'sixties as well as the dramatic critic of The Times, editor of Punch, and a distinguished Civil Servant, but to us he was more than this. He was an institution! I simply cannot remember when I did not know him. It is the Tom Taylors of the world who give children on the stage their splendid education. We never had any education in the strict sense of the word yet through the Taylors and others, we were educated.
Terry's frequent stage partner, Henry Irving said that Taylor was an exception to the general rule that it was helpful, even though not essential, for a dramatist to be an actor to understand the techniques of stagecraft: "There is no dramatic author who more thoroughly understands his business".
In 1855 Taylor married the composer, musician and artist Laura Wilson Barker (1819–1905). She contributed music to at least one of his plays, an overture and entr'acte to Joan of Arc (1871), and harmonisations to his translation Ballads and Songs of Brittany (1865). There were two children: the artist John Wycliffe Taylor (1859–1925) and Laura Lucy Arnold Taylor (1863–1940). Taylor and his family lived at 84 Lavender Sweep, Battersea, where they held Sunday musical soirees. Celebrities who attended included Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Henry Irving, Charles Reade, Alfred Tennyson, Ellen Terry and William Makepeace Thackeray.
Taylor died suddenly at his home in 1880 at the age of 62 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery. After his death, his widow retired to Coleshill, Buckinghamshire, where she died on 22 May 1905.